The Nokia XpressMusic 5800, also known as the first touch screen phone from Nokia, has arrived! Featuring probably the best hardware (HSDPA, Wi-Fi and GPS) for a music phone, the Nokia 5800 is set to rival the N series in terms of functionality! The new touch-enabled S60 operating system is said to carry the hope of Nokia in advancing its share in the smartphone sector. Does it have enough muscle for a smartphone? Let’s find out now.

The package is full of stuff! Not only does it contain the phone, a battery, a charger, two styluses, a headset, a video-out cable, a connectivity cable, a carrying case, a wrist strap with “guitar pick stylus”, a user’s guide and a mini DVD…it also comes with a stand! The stand is perfect for movie-watching because it keeps the phone steadily tilted for the best viewing angle.

The Nokia 5800 remotely resembles the Apple iPhone 3G and the Samsung i900 Omnia due to its big screen. The phone is somewhat thicker at 15.5mm, however.

The home, answer/reject buttons are the only buttons on the front surface. Obviously Nokia (and Samsung) learnt from the Apple iPhone that even a touch-screen phone needs some physical buttons to quickly answer or reject calls.

The back cover is covered with rubber to add more friction to it. I like the straight cover very much.The camera on the Nokia 5800 is nothing short of impressiveness. The 3.2MP camera has Carl Zeiss “certified” optics, dual-LED flash and auto-focus. Photo quality is superb with pretty accurate exposure and color.The 2MP camera comes with neither a flash nor auto-focus but it has night mode and burst mode (maximum 9 shots in a row) to make up for it. The camera is on par with other budget model.On the top of the phone there are the power button and the 3.5mm earphone jack, which is typical for the XpressMusic line of phone. The phone also comes with a stereo speaker.The 2008 Innovation Award goes to Nokia for the most challenging SIM removal design. If you have accidentally destroyed the user manual (that happens a lot to me), there is a simple guide to climb Mount Everest on the back of the battery slot.When you have successfully “pushed” the SIM card out, you can “pull” it from the left side of the phone. By the way, microSD card is a lot easier to remove!No smartphone is complete without a stylus, Nokia 5800 is no exception. The exceptionally long stylus does not have any metal to reinforce its strength, so be careful with itThe built-in accelerometer can detect the orientation of the phone, simply hold it horizontally and it will switch to the landscape mode (shown here).The virtual keyboard aims at making the best use of the 3.2” screen. The small white area in the upper middle section displays what you have typed so far. Of course, big is not always powerful (like the SPB keyboard found on WM machines) and I hope Nokia can come up with a more effective input method that doesn’t require users to switch to-and-fro between the program and keyboard.It seems to me that the new S60 system isn’t making the best use of the screen. There are a lot of “free spaces” on the home screen. It would certainly help if Nokia can make the icon and clock larger by default.Being one of the XpressMusic phones, the Nokia 5800 does not disappoint in music function. The very capable music player, 3.5mm phone jack and music enhancement features are all there.

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